Father Abram J. Ryan: Poet, priest, defender of the South (photos)

MOBILE, Alabama – At Catholic
Cemetery on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, his gravesite is easy to
spot. It is marked by a stark white marble cross and slab lying
underneath a flying Christian flag.

But it was another flag – the flag of the Confederacy – that helped make a name for Father Abram Joseph Ryan, the “poet-priest of the South” who considered Mobile home enough to want to be buried here.

In a Tennessee rectory just after the South surrendered, the Catholic priest wrote an epitaph for a fallen nation called “The Conquered Banner.” At one point in time, it was required reading for schoolchildren.

In part, it says:

“Furl that Banner, for ‘tis weary;

Round its staff ‘tis drooping dreary;

Furl it, fold it, it is best:

For there’s not a man to wave it,

And there’s not a sword to save it,

And there’s not one left to lave it

In the blood which heroes gave it;

And its foes now scorn and brave it;

Furl it, hide it – let it rest.”

In his day, Ryan was nationally known for his sermons, lectures and writings, but in the 1870s, he was based in Mobile, first as assistant at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and then as pastor at St. Mary’s church.

Today, Ryan isn’t well known in Mobile, so you won’t hear his name unless you bump into a historian or visit the local archives. Yet there’s an upstairs study at the Portier House on Cathedral Square that houses his portrait and bust. There’s also a 6-foot-tall statue of the priest at Springhill and N. Bayou, near Broad Street, in the middle of a park bearing his name.

Who knew?

“How many people in Mobile would be able to identify who that statue is?” said the Rev. Msgr. G. Warren Wall, current pastor at St. Mary’s. “Nine out of 10 people probably would not get that right.”

Perhaps this can be traced to modern sensibilities or a lack of understanding of local history – or both.

“He’s mostly recognized as a figure of the Confederacy,” said Wall. “Most people feel like they’ve moved on from that.”

Wall pointed out, though, that other local figures, such as writer Augusta Jane Evans Wilson – and until recently, baseball great Hank Aaron – have not been given a lot of recognition here. “We’ve not really promoted much of our local history,” he said.

(Click on the above image to see more photos, or click here to view them on your mobile device.)

God and the Confederacy

Born Matthew Abraham Ryan to Irish immigrants, probably in Maryland in 1838, Ryan was a religious youngster who chose to study for the priesthood in St. Louis, Mo., with the Vincentian Fathers. He finished his studies at the Barrens near St. Louis and at Niagara University in New York. However, he parted ways with the Vincentian Fathers and became a simple priest.

Ryan’s younger brother, David, also studied for the priesthood but instead joined the Confederate army and died in Kentucky. This loss helped to shape Ryan, who observers said had two loves: God and the Confederacy. His refusal to use the name Abraham was credited to Lincoln’s election.

David O’Connell, now retired from Georgia State University, wrote a book in 2006 about Ryan entitled “Furl That Banner.” In his book, he points out that Ryan was among many rank-and file Irish Catholics who were supporters of the Confederate cause.

Michael Kreyling, professor of English at Vanderbilt University, said that some Southern religious men of the day were behind the pulpit trying to reconcile Christian teachings and slavery. Ryan, he said, was not exactly that, but more of a “cheerleading kind of poet.”

Still, “he’s part of that sort of fellowship of preachers,” said Kreyling, who team-taught a class on the Civil War from a literature standpoint.

Restless and suffering

A wanderer, Ryan left his footprints in various places in the 1860s, including as a priest in Illinois and Tennessee, where he was also an unofficial chaplain to Confederate soldiers. It was in Knoxville that he penned his most famous poem “in a little over an hour” and “out of a broken heart,” he said later. A plaque commemorates the spot, and a Catholic school in Nashville bears his name.

Some tales have Ryan going missing at times, or at least spanning a wider geographical area, including New Orleans, where he was said to have smarted off to a general who had accused him of refusing to bury a Union soldier.

Ryan supposedly said: “Why, I was never asked to bury him, and never refused. The fact is, General, I would like very well to bury the whole lot of you.”

It is also said that the poet-priest was well known enough to have received a passing reference by name in Margaret Mitchell classic novel “Gone With the Wind.”

Before coming to Mobile, Ryan was a priest at St. Patrick’s church in Augusta, Ga., where he edited the Catholic newspaper Banner of the South and took on Reconstruction policies. Eventually, Ryan was dismissed by the bishop because of differences, and the paper folded.

At home in Mobile

Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Lipscomb of the Archdiocese of Mobile wrote a paper about Ryan in July 1972. Lipscomb, a historian, described Ryan as “truly a legend in his own time: who stood a good chance of ‘becoming somewhat of a myth to subsequent generations.’”

Lipscomb, 81 and retired, wasn’t available for an interview, but his article pronounces Mobile as “the Alabama city that (Ryan) always considered home.”

You can imagine Father Ryan – blue eyes flashing and long hair brushed back in brown curls – coming to Mobile in the summer of 1870 during the height of yellow fever season. He is said to have worked tirelessly with the sick, often at the side of Rabbi Abraham Laser, according to writings by Laser’s daughter.

He took a job as an assistant at the cathedral. According to O’Connell’s book, when Ryan delivered the St. Patrick’s Day sermon in 1871, it was packed.

He edited The Morning Star, a Catholic publication in New Orleans, from his office at the cathedral. He managed the organization “Children of Mary” and helped to raise money for orphans, putting together literary publications for their benefit.

“It was also during the Mobile years that Ryan’s fame as a preacher and speaker made his name a household word throughout the South, and in much of the North, as well,” wrote Lipscomb.

Eventually, his health suffered, and he had to travel to Europe to recuperate. When he returned, he had a new job, which assured less friction between him and the bishop.

In the suburbs

According to Lipscomb’s paper, some of Ryan’s happiest days were spent as pastor of St. Mary’s church in the late 1870s, where he assumed a slower pace in the “suburbs” of Mobile. He could write more, sometimes under a pen name, and assume pastoral duties.

At about this time, a friend engineered the publishing of the priest’s poems with the help of the publisher at the Mobile Register. A first edition can still be found today, as well as a large portrait, at the History Museum of Mobile, along with a Bible he gave to Admiral Raphael Semmes in 1876.

Ryan eventually retired to Biloxi, where he fostered a friendship with Jefferson Davis, president of the failed Confederacy. At that time, Ryan took to lecturing again in hopes of helping to pay off the mortgage for the Camelite nuns of New Orleans.

While lecturing, he fell ill and died on April 22, 1886, at St. Boniface Church in Louisville, Ky. He left an unfinished book, “Life of Christ,” behind. But he wanted his body returned to Mobile.

Requiem mass

Ryan’s funeral was held at the cathedral on Tuesday, April 27, 1886, a rainy day with temperatures in the 60s. His body was transported to Catholic Cemetery by carriages and a wagon.

“Offerings of flowers were numerous,” said one report. “One beautiful design coming from the ex-Confederates of Louisville.”

Today, the life-size statue of Ryan downtown depicts him with head bowed and arms outstretched, prayer book in one hand. The bronze sculpture was paid for by “dimes given by Southern children.” About 1,000 people attended its unveiling in 1913.

Today, you won’t find Ryan’s name in the Encyclopedia of Alabama, a new online initiative, or in the fourth-grade state history textbook, “Alabama: The History, Geography, Economics and Civics of an American State,” by Leah Rawls Atkins and Harvey H. Jackson III.

Neither can he be found in the Pulitzer-nominated book co-authored by Atkins, “Alabama: History of a Deep South State.” However, an entry on the poet-priest can be found online in This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape.

So, how should he be viewed today?

“’The Conquered Banner’ is a beautiful poem, one whose sentiment has largely gone out of the culture,” said John Sledge, architectural historian with the Mobile Historical Commission.

“When you wave it in public, you’re going to get lots of reactions. It’s complicated,” said Sledge. “What’s significant is that his poem moved a lot of people.”

One of Ryan’s poems, published in the Weekly Register in 1879, is entitled: “What Ails the World?”